Tag: social media marketing

You can now also use Hindi in your Facebook mobile app other than Marathi. Hindi along with Vietnamese and Malay has been added to Facebook’s java based Facebook for Every Phone app.

The total number of languages supported in the mobile version now comes up to 14. The company will be adding support for seven more Indian languages over the next few weeks for its app. Bangla, Hindi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Urdu are currently being offered in the web version.

Switch to Hindi can be made through the settings menu in the app and choosing the preferred language. How will the Hindi experience be different? Well, all the menu options will come translated to Hindi. Messages will be सन्देश, New message will become नया वार्तालाप, News Feed will be समाचार फीड, Notification becomes सूचनाए, Refresh becomes ताजा करे, and back is goign to be वापस.

Though, a lot of attention is given to translate minor details that could simplify the app usage for Hindi users. However, the app doesn’t allow users to type in Hindi.

You can download the app by visiting m.facebook.com and scrolling down to the download link, or by entering d.facebook.com/install directly into your mobile browser. You can also find it in leading app stores, including Nokia OVI, GetJar, Appia, and Mobile Weaver.

Believe it or not, it doesn’t happen every day that Mark Zuckerberg himself calls your office to say ‘thank you’ for the delicious biscuits you had sent for his Beast (Mark’s Hungarian sheepdog).

Beast, Mark Zuckerberg's Hungarian sheep dog

Well, there you go, our exclusive opportunity to extend our love for biscuits, dogs and masala chai (chai is for us) to Timeline, apps and brands.

That is when Mark spilled the beans and told us about the Dislike button which will be rolled out as next set of features with the Timeline. Dislike button will adorn your profile picture for a day i.e. on the first day of April. This will be part of an innovation trail campaign to test new features by Facebook. Good news is that you can have a go at your friends’ pictures on a disliking spree. Now, isn’t that really cool and slightly wicked 😉

Well, all the best to Mark and special thanks to Beast for helping us to provide this scoop. 🙂 We promise to keep sending more biscuits for Beast. Of course, we would expect more such scoops in return.

If you’ve read so far, then you will surely want to share this and contribute to the global April Fools count 🙂

Facebook = Friends. However, all friends are not created equal; some by default are your favourite chat buddies, others the secret keepers, some come handy for hitchhiking to college or office, while others are life of your party. Based on this social phenomenon Facebook introduced Smart Lists in September last year, an easy way to segregate your friends as co-workers, college friends, relatives etc. This was to make sure you share only what is relevant to your friends in these lists.

Now, that you have done that, you probably want to keep updated more about a selected few of your friends and want to avoid others (e.g. some relatives or creepy friends). To help you do that Facebook recently revamped its ‘Acquaintances’ list, to add those friends from whom you would like to get fewer updates through the Acquaintance list suggestion manager.

Updates from your friends in the Acquaintances list will appear with much less frequency in your News Feed. You can also choose to selectively share your updates with friends minus the acquaintances. Those in this somewhat ignored list won’t be able to know of your intentions, so there won’t be any fear of some awkward confrontation later on. Plus, you don’t have to delete anyone anymore, just manage them the Facebook way

Yahoo recently filed a law suit against Facebook over patent infringement claiming that technology used by the social network actually belongs to the search engine. Gearing up to this law suit, Facebook has purchased 750 patents from IBM, this was reported by VentureBeat today. Though, no additional details were provided by Facebook spokesperson on the issue.

Yahoo had to face a lot of criticism as entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley veterans came in support of Facebook. According to popular perception the claims made by Yahoo aren’t substantial as same features and technology have been used by others as well.

Yahoo has claimed infringement on two privacy patents, four advertising patents, two customization patents, one messaging patent, and one social networking patent” according to the blog.

Is Facebook panicking by purchasing large number of patents from IBM? Difficult to say as the social networking behemoth has only 56 patents with 503 filed and pending. Moreover, Facebook probably wants to come clean before its IPO hits the market.

Facebook has expressed its disappointment on the hostile action taken by Yahoo and vowed to defend itself vigorously. Its spokesperson had earlier told media, “We’re disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation… we will defend ourselves vigorously against these puzzling actions.”

You like it or not it’s difficult to break old and time tested ties. And guess what the colonial past of several countries is catching up with them.

Any guesses how? Well, it’s the Facebook, the 845 million strong social network which has users from each and every country of the world shows unique set of relationships between people of a particular region and the colonial power which once ruled them long time back.

According to the recent data released by Facebook, people living in countries which were once ruled by colonial powers such as Britain, Spain, France and Portugal still has more affinity in terms of shared friends.

Depicted through this color coded map, darker the blue higher is the fraction of foreign Facebook connections with the colonial power in question. The data consists of 214 countries ranked according to their strength of relationship.

Britain’s Facebook population shows strong ties to New Zealand, Australia and swathes of east Africa. Those Facebooking in West Africa have more in their friend lists in France. Latin American region with dominating Spanish speaking population is strongly tied to Spain. Brazilians are firmly linked to Portugal, same for the people in Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau.

Stagnation in world economies has taken marketing gurus by surprise and beyond doubt has dented consumer sentiment. However, the 840mn strong social network that is Facebook feels like fresh air for brands when you tell them that more than half of its users log in on a daily basis. Well, that’s not it when it comes to these users loving (read liking) brands on Facebook India has been doing much better compared to US.

This data was released by digital marketing research company eMarketer recently. When asked if users will follow or ‘like’ brands on Facebook, 24% Indians answered in affirmative. For US this was just 10%. For another question on whether social networking sites are a good source of word of mouth information on brand experiences, 27% Indians agreed followed by US with 18%

Overall social networking usage is gaining momentum in emerging markets like Brazil and China followed by India where users are more likely to engage with brands online. Experts have predicted that over half of total social media ad revenues in 2012 would come from outside the US, the study quoted.

All organizations, businesses or individuals are set to gain by this social boom irrespective of their revenue model or company size. So, don’t be left out and set up a page for yourself or your brand. To set up your Facebook page click here.

Still not sure how to get those fans on your side? We are always here to help.

So, you have been on Facebook for quite some time and even got a business page setup for your brand in one proud moment. You expected people to like your jokes, share your photos and comment on your posts, as they have been doing on your competitors Facebook page.

However, nothing seems to be working and the loneliness if starting to hurt your brand. Well, failure at community management is the most common mistake committed by brands. This hurts their chances to make any breakthrough in lead generation, client servicing, and becoming a brand that is social and connected.

Why this happens?

Lack of Objectives: Facebook is a great marketing platform or that’s what you heard from someone. However, don’t forget that the rules of marketing still uphold for the social network. Start by defining your social media objectives. What do you plan to do with your Facebook page and the SM identity in general? What are the end objectives? Thinking about these questions would help you define your branding and content strategy.

Push Strategy: Give your fans what they want and not what you are. Post what you core community is interested in and not just what you are good at. Bottom line is do not hard sell trying to make a traditional sales pitch. Be social and become part of the conversation!

Know your community: Make use of range of free analytic tools like Facebook Insights, SocialMention and Google Alerts to know where your community resides and what they are talking about. Start listening to their conversations on social networks, blogs, forums and jump in where ever you can without being too nosey.

Have a content strategy: Develop a social media calendar for your content strategy that could deliver high engagement levels i.e. where users willingly choose to embrace you brand. You can do that by developing Facebook apps, coupons, contests, videos, cartoons etc. Your fans or their friends will always trace back the links to your online identity getting you more traffic and viral engagement. Never abandon your Facebook page and always keep it updated.

Remember social networks like Facebook helps you embrace social i.e. relying on users recommendations and likes to give thumbs up to your products and services, so that even their friends become positively disposed towards your brand. Can you choose to ignore it?